The Jumping Point

On Monday I went for a hike down a trail not far from our place with a friend from Flagstaff. We hiked the four miles in to a place along Beaver Creek called "The Crack" nice and early to avoid the heat of the day. But we both decided we wanted to get back home by mid-afternoon, which meant turning an easy four-mile walk into a not-so-easy four mile death march in 106 degree temps with little to no shade.

So, to prepare ourselves for what we knew was going to be an unpleasant afternoon, we opted to take one last dip into the creek before hitting the trail. We just happened to be passing by one of the more popular "dipping" spots, too: The Beaver's Tongue (named for its tongue-like shape and the fact that it's perched 18 feet above Beaver Creek, I suppose).

I won't belabor this too much, since it's really not a very interesting story. Suffice to say that jumping off the tongue is not necessarily an easy thing to do the first time...unless you've got balls of steel. Which I don't. Here I am pondering the pending dip.

Note the impressive physique. Yeah, baby. That's what I'm talkin' about!

Anyway, it took me about eight minutes of standing at the edge, staring down into the deep green pool below me before I finally got the nerve to leap off of the ledge.

Ok, so it wasn't so much a "leap" as it was a dorky power-walk off the edge. With a loud and impressively high pitched little girl-like scream accompanying my descent.

You can call me "Grace", thank you very much.

As fun as this looks, the amount of water that shot up my nose made it decidedly less so.

Stinky Fingers and a Stream Stomp

The stink on my fingers won't go away. It's been about six hours and countless hand-cleansings since I misguidedly picked up an unusual ground beetle I spotted on the road this morning, and the stench it left behind on my fingers is still quite discernable. I believe the beetle I found is in the Genus Pasimachus, but I could be wrong. It looks pretty darn close, though. It could even be the species shown in that link, but I didn't bother to look it up while it was still in my hand. Now, while I normally refrain from picking up our local Pinacate Beetles (also known as "Darkling" beetles from the Genus Eleodes) due to their tendancy to live up to their other name (stink beetle), I didn't even consider that this one would have the same sort of defensive behavior.

Well, I'm paying the price for my curiosity. My finger smells like ass. So, naturally, everything that I bring near my mouth using my left hand also smells like ass.

Smelly fingers aside, Sonja and I took the dogs out to enjoy the spectacularly beautiful weather today. It's sunny and about 75 degrees, with a nice breeze to keep things cool. We walked up the ditch to one of the better dog swimming holes in Beaver Creek to let Harvey play around a bit (he's feeling much better now...all of his swelling and hives have gone).

It was really nice to just wade around in the pool and watch Harvey do his rock diving thing. He looked ecstatic as he dove for rock after rock after rock. It's nice to see him feeling so much better.

Luna, on the other hand, seemed very bored. She doesn't look it in this photo, but she kept staring up at us with this forlorn look on her face wondering why she couldn't run around off leash. She'll just have to stay bored, though. We're not going to take the chance of her running off and disappearing again. She did her best to make up for her apparent boredom, though, finding the only rotting piece of dead stuff in the area to roll around in. Luckily, it was only a little dead lizard, so it wasn't nearly as gross as some of the stuff she found on the beach in Seward (nothing like a dog that smells like rotting salmon). Still, it meant she earned herself a good washing off in the stream.

She definitely was not thrilled about that. Not sure how well it worked, but at least she doesn't smell like my finger.

Aren't Deserts Usually Dry?

I guess this one isn't. At least not during the monsoon season. It's pretty crazy just how wet it's been lately. This afternoon we had a helluva thunderstorm which dumped a butt-load of rain over only about an hours time. 45 minutes later we get a call from the National Weather Service asking to keep an eye on Beaver Creek, since it had just crested at Montezuma Well and they wanted us to let them know when it crested at the Castle.

Another 45 minutes later, the creek suddenly transforms from a tiny little bubbling brook into what you see below over a span of approximately five minutes.



I'm kinda liking this whole monsoon thing. I've been pretty amazed at how regular the cycle is once it sinks into the area. Clear skies in the morning, but by 2pm the thunder starts to roll. Then by 8 in the evening it clears back up. It's done that practically every day for the last two weeks now. And after nearly 30 days of high temps over 100 degrees, we've finally gotten a break. Haven't hit triple digits now for six days. I'm liking this late summer desert climate!